Sunday, 18 September 2016

Double, Double by Michael Jan Friedman

Double, Double was Michael Jan Friedman's first Star Trek novel and a sequel to the original series episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?". I have to admit a fondness for novels that continue established stories and this one does cover all the bases for extending the story of the ancient machine and the goal of Dr Korby to replace well everyone with their android duplicates.
It seems that Captain Kirk in his desire to protect Chapel glossed over the events on Exo III and also failed to do a full investigation, this mistake comes back to haunt him when a copy of Dr Brown returns to the facility and discovers his creator is dead. The android decides to continue the work and the template for Kirk is still in the machine, the android Kirk is fully loaded especially in terms of ego and ventures forth with his takeover of a starship, the removal of Kirk and then to control the galaxy.
There has been a running joke in the Trek podcast community that a dedicated Starship follows the Enterprise around to clean up the mess and handle all the specifics of Kirk's plans for the betterment of everyone. So here we have the USS Hood with an incomplete report innocently arriving at Exo III and paying the price and it all makes sense, it may stretch credibility that Kirk whitewashed his report but hey not the first time or the last and let's face it the reports on Talos were to put it mildly pure misdirection by Starfleet Command.
I enjoyed the novel, it was well paced and lots of detail and drama given as a lot of the novel takes place off the Enterprise and the character dynamic worked well both between the "real" people and the androids and in all combinations thereof.